The Season of Creation is a time to renew our relationship with our Creator and all creation through celebration, conversion, and commitment together. During the Season of Creation, we join our sisters and brothers in the ecumenical family in prayer and action for our common home.
Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I proclaimed 1 September as a day of prayer for creation for the Orthodox in 1989. In fact, the Orthodox church year starts on that day with a commemoration of how God created the world.
The World Council of Churches was instrumental in making the special time a season, extending the celebration from 1 September until 4 October.
Following the leadership of Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I and the WCC, Christians worldwide have embraced the season as part of their annual calendar. Pope Francis established the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation in the Roman Catholic Church in 2015, and in 2019 started celebrating the Season of Creation as well.
In recent years, statements from religious leaders around the world have also encouraged the faithful to take time to care for creation during the month-long celebration.
The season starts 1 September, the Day of Prayer for Creation, and ends 4 October, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology beloved by many Christian denominations.
Throughout the month-long celebration, the world’s 2.2 billion Christians come together to care for our common home.
- from https://seasonofcreation.org/about/
In 2019 The Anglican Church of Canada adopted the Season of Creation, beginning September 1st and continuing through to October 4, the Feast of St. Francis, “as an annual season of prayer, education and action to protect the gift of God’s creation”. The designation of September 1st as a liturgical feast is intended to reinforce and further develop the Season of Creation, not replace it.
from https://gs2025.anglican.ca/resolutions/a122/
More about the Feast of the Creator (1 Sept) https://www.anglican.ca/resources/feast-of-the-creator/
This year’s theme is “Living Water.”
“Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. [...] Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing. ” (Ezek 47:9,12)
This year’s theme, “Living Water” , explores Ezekiel 47:9 and 12 as a powerful biblical vision of hope and ecological healing. Set amid exile and loss, the image of living water flowing from God’s sanctuary reveals divine healing that renews land, water, biodiversity, and human responsibility towards the whole creation.
The symbol depicts water flowing from the Temple of God - at first a tiny stream that grows deeper, and deeper and as it does so, it brings life to dead areas and restores fertility to damaged or barren ecosystems. Through living water comes healing; but in order to receive new life, we too must step into the water and also become part of God’s river of life, taking part in the healing of creation.
- from the 2026 Celebration Guide https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WeWEjt_WxyS6Ed5qD8tnRIahSMJ5SUmi/view
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